REFUGEES from war-torn Yemen fleeing intense
airstrikes are arriving in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, aid agencies
said Wednesday, warning of a possible large influx ahead.

While a
total of 238 refugees from Yemen have registered in Djibouti in recent weeks,
the UN refugee agency UNHCR said, preparations were being made for many more.

“UNHCR
and the Djiboutian authorities are expecting a big influx, but the extent is
still unclear at the moment,” Frederic Van Hamme, from UNHCR Djibouti
said.

The
movement of refugees from Yemen to Djibouti and Somalia reverses a decades-old
trend whereby Somalis have sought safety from decades of war in Yemen.

“The
situation in Yemen is very violent and the people there are suffering,”
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Wednesday in a
statement from Djibouti.

“The
ICRC is scaling up its presence in Djibouti in anticipation of a possible
increase in the number of people who may flee the southern regions of Yemen in
search of safe haven from the fighting.”

A sea
channel only 30 kilometres (20 miles) wide at its narrowest point separates
Djibouti and Yemen.

A
refugee camp site is being set up in Markazi near the small northern port of
Obock, Van Hamme added.

Fierce
ground fighting

“Yemen
is undergoing intense air strikes and fierce ground fighting nationwide,”
the ICRC added, “while in the key southern port of Aden “there have
been sporadic clashes with use of tanks in many parts of the city”.

ICRC is
supporting the Djibouti Red Crescent Society “to help reconnect refugees
with any family members they might have been separated from while fleeing the
violence”, it added.

More
than 540 people have died and 1,700 been wounded since March 19 in Yemen, according
to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Even as
Yemenis begin to arrive in Somalia, the Arabian peninsula nation continues to
host more than 238,000 Somali refugees, according to UNHCR.

UNHCR
in Somalia has said it is “standing by” for more arrivals after the
first Yemeni refugees arrived at the port of Berbera in northern Somaliland
late last month, with Somalis also returning to their homeland.

Somalia’s northern regions
are impoverished and have suffered the knock-on effects of years of outright
civil war further south, but are largely peaceful.

In the southern parts of the
Horn of Africa nation, African Union and Somali troops continue to battle
Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab insurgents.